In the eternal quest between good and bad, God decided to
create Christmas to cheer us up from the winter blues and, to answer that,
Satan created Halloween. He replaced feel-good movies with horror flicks,
carols singing with trick-or-treating, trees with pumpkins, but the hardest
thing to replace was Santa… until, in a moment of true genius, he created Alice
Cooper.
Halloween 2011’s biggest party takes place in an unusual yet
apt location: Alexandra Palace dominates London from the top of a hill, surrounded
by sinister woodlands, barricading it from the ‘civilized’ malls and traffic of
Wood Green. Inside, inebriated zombies,
fairies, trolls and superheroes crawl around the bars waiting for the show to
kick off.
After a top notch support in the evergreen New York Dolls,
the spooky crowd is ready to welcome uncle Alice and his legendary
nightmares. Black Widow opens
proceedings; the choreography is the same we’ve seen at Download, with our hero
in a spider costume preaching from an extraordinarily tall stand, terrifying
kids and – mostly – ladies with his eight legs drawing creepy shadows in the
thick smoke.
The set list is a theatrical, colourful collage of new, old
and even older; ‘I’ll bite your face off’ blends perfectly between Eighties
numbers and Seventies classics, with a few unexpected gems making a rare
appearance. The visuals –as always in Alice Cooper’s world – are a primary
element of the show, yet the spotlight is on one of the most charismatic,
original and creative artists the rock scene has ever witness and his
impeccable performance.
An exquisite medley of ‘School’s Out’ and Pink Floyd ‘The
Wall’ and special guest Arthur Brown with his rendition of ’68 classic ‘Fire’
are the icing on this ghoulish Halloween cake.
Monstrous.
As the amazing man that is Alice Cooper let us shoot the
whole set, I will humbly let the images do the talk now, next to the set list
for this scaringly awesome night. May he live forever - in whatever form -
because it won’t be Halloween again without Alice Cooper.
Set List:
Black Widow
Brutal Planet
I'm Eighteen
Under My Wheels
Billion Dollar Babies
No More Mr Nice Guy
Hey Stoopid
Is It My Body
Halo Of Flies
I'll Bite Your Face Off
Muscle Of Love
Only Women Bleed
Cold Ethyl
Feed My Frankenstein
Clones (We're All)
Poison
Wicked Young Man
Killer/I Love The Dead
School's Out/Another Brick In The Wall
Elected
Fire (with Arthur Brown)
by Cristina Massei